Thaldeep Sharma

Responsibilities:

• Overall responsibility of developing and implementing Digital Product Vision and Strategy for Aeroplan's Travel and Retail Products including Hotels, Cars, Vacation Packages, Merchandise, Gift Cards and Affiliate partners (Amazon, Best Buy, etc.)
• Lead a team of Product Owners to plan and prioritize Product features in order to maximize revenues and remove customer friction
• Lead Customer Analytics to ensure Product performance is delivering upon revenue targets and monitor key customer KPIs and behavior insights
• Collaborate with Product Owners and Internal Stakeholders to continuously assess business value and ensure Product Roadmap remains prioritized based on revenue growth and customer experience
• Provide leadership, guidance, and support to the team, ensuring adherence to Agile Development including product discovery, backlog management, increment planning and acceptance criteria
• Represents the voice of the business and the customer
• Monitor and communicate portfolio performance and insights to senior leadership, partners and key stakeholders
• Implement & maintain the infrastructure required to perform (suppliers, contracts, resources, vendor account management)
• Continuously engage with stakeholders, partners, senior leadership on product roadmap and performance to identify new opportunities and risks

Responsibilities:

• Overall accountability for the portfolio vision, revenue and strategy including roadmap and business casing
• Lead team of Product Owners and Analysts to deliver upon Non-Air Travel Products Roadmap
• Leverage Analytics, Data, BI teams to evaluate opportunities
• Represents the voice of the business and the customer
• Monitor and address portfolio performance
• Implement & maintain the infrastructure required to perform (suppliers, contracts, resources, vendor account management)
• Marketing and promo plan definition in coordination with Marketing
• Lead vendor/platform roadmap discussions

Accomplishments

• Oversaw the on-time and below budget successful launch of Air Canada's new loyalty program for Non-Air Travel Products and Air Canada Vacations
• Lead business contract negotiations with new partners
• Collaborated with key internal stakeholders including Legal, Tax, Procurement, Finance, Marketing, IT and others to deliver strategic objectives
• Increased Portfolio revenues by over $20M/year and profitability by over $10M/year by implementing new product enhancements

Responsibilities

• Responsible for the overall Travel Products vision, strategy and roadmap at Aeroplan including Flight, Hotel, Car, Packages & Ancillary Products
• Lead a team of Product Managers and Product Owners to deliver the Product strategies and roadmap
• Lead contractual negotiations with Travel Products suppliers & partners
• Business Lead and responsible for internal stakeholder alignment
• Responsible for Product Revenues and delivering on key performance indicators (KPIs)
• Lead Agile Transformation at Aeroplan by implementation of best practices in Agile Product Development and Putting in place Agile Product Teams
• Oversee all phases of product development from inception to rollout
• Work with senior leadership to ensure future roadmap is in sync with corporate strategies and objectives

Accomplishments

• Leading and successfully delivering the Travel Retail Strategy, one of the largest business transformation initiative at Aeroplan. Project consisted of nearly 60 team members including onshore and offshore teams, 5 streams and over a dozen internal and external stakeholders including Contact Center, Marketing, Security & Compliance, Legal, Redemption Optimization, Finance, Accounting, Customer Experience, Brand & Market Research
• Product diversification and continuous enhancements delivered up to 100% growth in revenues for select Travel Products
• Set the foundation to position Aeroplan as one stop shop for everything Travel

Responsibilities

• Manage the Product Performance and KPIs
• Manage relationship with existing partners
• Business Lead for Product Roadmap delivery
• Lead Product Backlog creation, refinement, prioritization with IT and cross-functional teams
• Review and align on business requirements with internal stakeholders

Accomplishments

• Successfully delivered and launched completely revamped User Experience for Travel Products resulting in a significant growth in Product Revenues
• Recipient of 2017 Aeroplan Passion Awards for Inclusiveness

Responsibilities

• Grow Market Sales & Revenues by acquiring new clients and expanding relationship with current clients.
• Maintain Strong Relationships with key partners by developing in-depth knowledge of their business
• Analyzing partner production, market trends and identify growth opportunities with extensive use of Salesforce CRM, Web Analytics & reporting tools
• Oversee successful launch of new partners by working closely with Internal Support & Operations teams.
• Source exclusive deals for key partners including Amex, RBC, Air Canada.
• Conducting Quarterly Business Review with all partners and weekly or bi-weekly calls with Preferred partners

Accomplishments

• Increased Market Revenues by 25%.
• Contracted with over 40 new partners
• Leverage close relationship with partners to improve Market price competitiveness by over 30%
• Negotiated deeper Opaque discounts making Montreal among America’s top 10 Opaque markets (achieved 130% of target).
• Negotiated exclusive promotions with over 30 local partners, reaching almost 200% of targeted exclusive offer revenues.
• Lead successful integration of local technology partner allowing over 300 partners in Quebec to connect to Orbitz seamlessly

Responsibilities

• Lead the strategic planning exercise with executive team and align on key travel technology needs to deliver long term corporate growth strategies and objectives
• Provide strategic and business guidelines to used by travel technology vendors
• Lead business discussions with travel technology suppliers from around the world
• Liaise with Business & Technical teams as well as Project Manager to outline project scope, deliverables, timelines & milestones
• Lead Business Teams for functional and business requirement gathering
• Report on the progress during regular sessions with Executive team
• Prepare and Present project business case to executives and finance stakeholders
• Negotiate key deliverables, timelines & commercial terms with internal and external teams
• Collaborating with External Consultants (Ernst & Young) for Change Management & Process Mapping

Accomplishments

• Contracted and Negotiated over 30% operating cost reduction from current technology partner
• Negotiated project scope, deliverables, milestones & commercial terms with new technology partner that would allow to deliver corporate strategic objectives
• Presented and Obtained approval for the Business Case and Cost/Benefit analysis to Executive team and Air Canada’s finance committee
• Prepared a detailed Project Implementation Plan with all internal and external project tasks, milestones, timelines.

Responsibilities

• Optimize Revenues & Margins for Flights, Hotels & Packages to Europe, North America & Caribbean destinations
• Conduct Market Analysis and Report on Market trends, opportunities & threats
• Develop pricing, inventory, promotions strategies to maximize revenues
• Plan & Launch new promotional campaigns by working closely with Product, Marketing, Sales, E-comm.
• Monitor KPIs and Present weekly update of each market
• Analyze booking and market trends by using Reporting and Analytic tools
• Negotiate competitive and exclusive offers from flight and hotel partners

Accomplishments

• Increased pricing competitiveness by over 20% for key market by negotiating competitive cost with Air Canada & Hotel partners
• Increased margin by person by over 50% & Revenues by over 30%

Responsibilities

• Load Hotel Contracts & Promotions including rates, inventory, cancellation policy, etc. in the system.
• Maintain good relationship with partners
• Request additional inventory from key partners when required
• Communicate relevant information to internal departments regarding any new promotion launch

Accomplishments

• Improved promotion loading process for Sandals, Beaches & Disney hotels, cutting the turnaround time by 50%